Editing Boston Strangler (section)

==Multiple-killer theories==
Doubts persist as to whether DeSalvo was the sole perpetrator behind the Boston Strangler murders. At the time of his confession, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of such vicious crimes. Several factors created doubt that a serial killer was involved, given that they characteristically have a certain type of victim and method of murder: women killed by "The Strangler" were from a variety of age and ethnic groups, and they were murdered using multiple methods.

In 1968, Dr. Ames Robey, medical director of Bridgewater State Hospital, insisted that DeSalvo was not the Boston Strangler. He said the prisoner was "a very clever, very smooth compulsive confessor who desperately needs to be recognized." Robey's opinion was shared by Middlesex District Attorney [[John J. Droney]], Bridgewater Superintendent Charles Gaughan, and George W. Harrison, a former fellow inmate of DeSalvo's. Harrison claimed to have overheard another convict coaching DeSalvo about details of the strangling murders.<ref name=connolly>{{cite news|last1=Connolly|first1=Richard|title=Doctor Says DeSalvo Not Strangler|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/366177054|newspaper=The Boston Globe|date=February 29, 1968|access-date=July 5, 2017|archive-date=June 11, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611051933/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/366177054.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Feb+29%2C+1968&author=Connolly%2C+Richard&pub=Boston+Globe+%281960-1983%29&edition=&startpage=&desc=Doctor+Says+DeSalvo+Not+Strangler|id={{ProQuest|366177054}} |url-status=live}}</ref>

DeSalvo's attorney Bailey believed that his client was the killer, and described the case in ''The Defense Never Rests'' (1971).<ref name="Gardner" /> Susan Kelly, author of the book ''The Boston Stranglers'' (1996), drew from the files of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts "Strangler Bureau". She argues that the murders were the work of several killers rather than a single individual. Former [[FBI]] [[Criminal profiler|profiler]] [[Robert Ressler]] said, "You're putting together so many different patterns [regarding the Boston Strangler [[murder]]s] that it's inconceivable behaviorally that all these could fit one individual."<ref>[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-boston-strangler/ The Boston Strangler], ''48 Hours Mystery'', 15 February 2001. CBS News</ref>

[[John E. Douglas]], the former [[FBI]] special agent who was one of the first criminal profilers, doubted that DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. In his book ''[[The Cases That Haunt Us]]'', he identified DeSalvo as a "power-assurance" motivated rapist.{{clarify |date=December 2018 |reason=I believe the categories are power-assertive and power-reassurance; which is meant, or is this an exact quote from Douglas' book?}} He said that such a rapist is unlikely to kill in the manner of crimes attributed to the Boston Strangler; a power-assurance motivated rapist would, however, be prone to taking credit for the crimes.

In 2000, attorney and former print journalist Elaine Sharp took up the cause of the DeSalvo family and that of the family of Mary Sullivan. Sullivan was publicized as being the final victim in 1964, although other strangling murders occurred after that date. Sharp assisted the families in their media campaign to clear DeSalvo's name. She helped organize and arrange the exhumations of Mary Sullivan and Albert H. DeSalvo, filed various lawsuits in attempts to obtain information and trace evidence (e.g., [[DNA]]) from the government, and worked with various producers to create documentaries to explain the facts to the public.<ref name="strangler">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bostonstrangler.org/ |title=bostonstrangler.org |access-date=August 24, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050202064347/http://bostonstrangler.org/ |archive-date=February 2, 2005 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Sharp noted various inconsistencies between DeSalvo's confessions and the crime scene information (which she obtained). For example, she observed that, contrary to DeSalvo's confession to Sullivan's murder, the woman was found to have no semen in her vagina and she was not strangled manually, but by ligature. Forensic pathologist [[Michael Baden]] noted that DeSalvo got the time of death wrong. This was a common inconsistency also pointed out by Susan Kelly in several of the murders. She continued to work on the case for the DeSalvo family.<ref name="strangler"/>